Immediate results

Ive been challenged recently about how fast we expect people to be transformed by the gospel. I hear people talking about how "it takes time" for someone to be saved. How people wont accept the gospel straight away, you need to show them this and that first. I get confused because I know revival can sweep through a place terribly quickly and I look at The salvos fast rise but look at us now and wonder, what did they do that we dont? What is the difference? I found this interesting passage which talks about why The Salvation Army was succeeding...

by George Scott Railton from "Heathen England"


1. The Army succeeds by aiming at immediate results.
We have always aimed at immediate and definite results, believing that the
Gospel of Christ, properly preached in the demonstration of the Spirit, and with power, ought to prove, must prove, visibly as well as in the heart, its divine efficiency. What, indeed, can be the use of preaching, unless it secures some immediate result? Especially must this question arise when the audience largely consists of those who are little disposed even to listen to the Gospel; who have never come under its sound before, and never may again.


II. The Army succeeds by making the most of the converts.
When people are converted, as in the Apostles' days, so now, they not only love and bless God, but it is easy for those who have given them a hand, and lifted them on to their feet, to lead them about the city anywhere — marching, singing, praising and blessing God, where "all the people" can see them. The people always did, and always will, run together wondering at such a sight. Upon the principle of utilizing every convert to proclaim the glad tidings to others, the Army has always diligently acted, and therefore at every station it has opened, a band of men and women have been organized and trained daily to attack the kingdom of the wicked one, and daily to expect to gain recruits for the ranks.


III The Army succeeds by teaching converts to be Holy.
Not content with merely setting before sinners the way of salvation from the guilt, power, and punishment of sin, the Army has constantly pointed out to its converts that full salvation which Jesus has been expressly declared to offer to His people, so that they "being delivered out of the hand of their enemies, — might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him, all the days of their life.”


IV. The Army succeeds by teaching its hearers to do their utmost towards
meeting the expenses of the work.
The cost of hiring the buildings used, and of maintaining the officers and their families in the circumstances they have been accustomed to as working people, has been increasingly contributed to by those who have attended the services, and only supplemented by the liberality of Christian friends throughout the country, who have appreciated the opportunity of helping those who were thus diligent in helping themselves; so that, during one year, more than £12,000 are received from the poor, as against £4,000 given by the rich: We think it a vastly important test of the value of any work done amongst the poor, to what extent they themselves help to keep it up.

wow! Imagine if we did all that as an Army. Im going to try to work out how I can do that where I am now! Please, join with me in faith as we try to rekindle the coals!

6For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. 7For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline. 1 Timoth 1:6-7